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Leave the Dogs at Home

A Memoir

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Leave the Dogs at Home

By: Claire S. Arbogast
Narrated by: Marie Hoffman
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About this listen

Claire and Jim were friends, lovers, and sometimes enemies for 27 years. In order to get health insurance, they finally married, calling their anniversary the "It Means Absolutely Nothing" day. Then Jim was diagnosed with cancer. With ever-decreasing odds of survival, punctuated by arcs of false hope, Jim's deteriorating health altered their well-established independence as they became caregiver and patient, sharing intimacy as close as their own breaths.

A year and a half into their marriage, Jim died from lung/brain cancer. Sustained by good dogs and gardening through the two years of madness that followed, Claire soldiered through home repairs, career disaster, genealogy quests, and "dating for seniors" trying to build a better life on the debris of her old one.

Leave the Dogs at Home maps and plays with the stages of grief. Delightfully confessional, it challenges persistent, yet outdated, societal norms about relationships, and finds relief in whimsy, pop culture, and renewed spirituality.

©2015 Claire S. Arbogast (P)2016 Redwood Audiobooks Biographies & Memoirs Grief & Loss Relationships Feel-Good Dogs

Critic Reviews

"An excellent choice for those touched by grief, ready for a change, or just wanting to read a beautifully written memoir." ( Library Journal)
"...A genre-busting memoir of grief and survival...Arbogast's rugged, honest account is as fresh, inspiring, and unconventional as she clearly is." ( Bloom Magazine)
"In this stunning debut, Claire Arbogast infuses death with life, giving readers both the gut-punch of grief as well as the warmth of a life well lived. Candid, powerful, and unrelenting, Arbogast's pain becomes our pain, and her love becomes our love." (B.J. Hollars, author of This Is Only a Test)

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